Coffee nut wrote:
A potential way to see whether this is actually an issue is for some high ranked player to set up a new account, unbeknownst to everyone (except maybe the moderators, who would be able to oversee the process).
Ideally, that individual can have a 1 v 1 rating of 2000 or more. Then, that person can gain global rank the usual way, with certain restrictions that they are only able to join custom ranked games:
a) hosted for the global ranking boundaries that the player is in (i.e. only joining 400-800 games when 600 global rank, etc)
b) they also cannot tell anyone that it is indeed a new account of an old player (can't tell anyoone including their friends on faf; the reason for this is that then this player can play ranked team games with them and then that could be a confounding factor in the experiment)
We can then see how long and how many games it takes for that individual, who, by joining games intended for their global rank only, would reach their current global rank on the non-smurf account (+- 200 or w/e)
If that new account's global is markedly lower for a sustained amount of time, then it would indicate that current global rank of old accounts would not match up with new accounts even though they are on a similar skill level. This could imply a potential for smurfing.
If they reach global rank that matches their old account, then the ranking system would be evinced to work?
Would this help in settling some discontent/ confusion over the balancing mechanisms of this game?
N.B. If it is the case that I have misconstrued the issue here I would be glad if someone disagrees with this, as I haven't given it much thought, but if so, please tell me why it wouldn't work on top of highlighting my ignorance. Thanks
Very nice consideration of the issue, well thought.
But the simple fact that the said player in your example has to 'grind' and forcedly smurf his global rank to whetever his normal skill level is absolutely unacceptable. If the problem here is the ability of a player lowering its rank by intentionally losing in ladder then then this solution absolutely brings more harm then a real solution.
Let's put the new players aside and think about current ones. Even for old players this system is bad. By severing global and ladder ranking,
- The player still can reduce 1v1 rank and smurf(or call this whatever you want) 1v1 without worrying about his global showing what he does!
-The player can still reduce global rank by quiting custom games ruining 7 peoples time.
PS. Do not say why you care so much about rank without reading all that is posted here and look silly.Statistics: Posted by RedYak — 23 May 2014, 08:52
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